Shadow: Belated, yes, but I can still get away with it. (Just.) The twelve days of Christmas are not yet quite done. X3

Shipping: Chibishipping – Yugi Mouto x Mokuba Kaiba (They're both somewhat older in this.)

Little Gifts

23) Stockings

"Nii-sama's asked if I want to go back to the family mansion for Christmas."

Yugi looked up from his book at that, noting the serious set of his lover's face. "Oh?" He kept his tone light, but both of them could hear the thousand and one different meanings layered into that one, simple word. "What did you say?"

Kaiba Mokuba, twenty-three, grown-up and respectable, took a seat at the other's side, laying a hand on Yugi's arm. "I said I'd talk it over with you first, and let him know."

"Mokuba…" Yugi couldn't help but sigh at that, marking his page and closing his novel, "you know I'm not trying to get between your brother and you -"

"I know," Mokuba assured him gently.

"You should go to the mansion – it's a traditional thing for you and Kaiba; I'm not going to get in the way of that and spoil things -"

"Yugi, I'm not going to the mansion alone."

"Mokuba -"

"Come with me?"

Yugi paused at that, uncertainty shining in his lilac eyes. "Mokuba, it's a family thing; I really don't think I -"

"Aren't you part of my family?" Mokuba leaned in closer, his head on his lover's shoulder. "Onii-sama knows I love and care for you, and he did extend the offer to you as well when I originally said I'd be spending the holiday with you, and -"

"Mokuba…" Yugi was weakening.

"You should come for the evening to the mansion," Mokuba murmured, nuzzling into the crook of his lover's neck. "I made him promise not to rip your head off of your shoulders."

"How kind," Yugi managed to tone down the dryness in his voice slightly, hiding his own nervousness. "So decapitation's out, but have all the other options of murder gone the same way as well?"

"Yugi…" Mokuba sighed, his breath sending his boyfriend's bangs spinning, warm against the other's neck. "We go to your grandfather's home so much of the time, why couldn't we-?"

"There's a reason for that." Yugi couldn't help but interrupt. "My grandfather loves me, likes you, and isn't likely to try and stab either of us in the back with a letter-opener. Your brother on the other hand…"

Mokuba tugged on the other's arm, locking gazes with his lover's. His eyes were still as heartfelt as they had been when he'd been twelve. "Please Yugi? For me?"

Yugi sighed as well, and inwardly began planning his will. "…I'll go."

They sat in the limo together on the way to the Kaiba mansion, early evening on Christmas Eve. Many of the houses they passed in the streets were bedecked with lights and lanterns, their warm golden glow combating the encroaching night.

"I wonder if Seto'll have turkey this year…" Mokuba had his head on the other's shoulder; mind absent as he gazed out of the vehicle's window. "The chef and nii-sama often have a disagreement about it because she insists it's traditional and Seto usually pooh-poohs it -"

"Never mind turkey," Yugi was outright antsy, predicting his death when they were only halfway there (it was a wonder Mokuba was still using him as a pillow), "He's going to eat me alive."

Mokuba sat up, looking at his lover strangely. "Onii-sama's not that bad -"

"With stuffing, Mokuba! Stuffing!"

"Will you stop panicking?" The younger of the couple took his boyfriend's hand, trying to transmit reassurance through the feel of his fingertips. "As far as I know Seto's never really been into cannibalism and -"

"Mokuba," Yugi retorted rather flatly, "when I first told him about our relationship he threatened to gouge out my insides with a dull spoon."

"So apparently he's into the whole Egyptian mummification thing – that doesn't mean he doesn't like you!"

"Mokuba, does and quote, 'pain, death and eternal suffering' mean nothing to you? He threatened me with pain, death and eternal suffering!"

"Was this before or after the spoon?"

"Mokuba!" Yugi flailed with his free hand. "Your brother's going to kill me! Show some concern!"

"…What happened to the cool, calm and collected Yugi I know and love?"

"Cool, calm and collected Yugi got dragged off out into the wintry night and clubbed to death by hired thugs, much like the rest of him is due to be rather shortly."

"Yugi, you're being ridiculous." Mokuba raised the other's hand, pressing a soft kiss to the back of it, his voice utterly sincere. "My brother is well past the days of when he might've acquiesced to hired killing, though his demeanour to the general public would still have so many believe otherwise. His bark is worse than his bite -" the youth broke off suddenly, looking back out of the window once more, "we're here."

Yugi's smile was bright, but forced. "Wonderful."

It had been nearly so long that Mouto Yugi had forgotten how downright scary Kaiba Seto could be, up close, in person. (Not to say, of course, that he couldn't be almost as intimidating on-screen, but Yugi didn't have that option available to him at that moment in time.)

Mokuba had left the room his brother and lover was in, saying he was going to the toilet, but Yugi had his doubts. The somewhat pleased smiled on the black-haired male's face had been a bit of a giveaway, as had Kaiba's slowly-raised eyebrow in response to his younger sibling's actions.

A few minutes after the door had shut behind Mokuba Kaiba started to speak, a glass of the mulled wine the CEO had offered to his guests resting about chin-height in his hands. "…So you were nervous about coming here because of me?"

Either Kaiba was a mind-reader, or the Kaiba brothers were somehow telepathic. Yugi was going to go out on a tentative limb, and say it was a bit of both, trying to hide his nerves behind a lowly snapped retort. "I'm not going to be worried about visiting a house, Kaiba."

"You should be;" was the rather dry retort, Kaiba taking a sip of his drink, "we have a torture chamber in the basement." Yugi baulked. "I'm joking, Mouto."

"Oh…oh -"

"Don't die on me, hm? Mokuba would be most put-out." Kaiba put down his drink. "He's grown terribly fond of you."

And so they reached the root of the matter, in Kaiba's usual direct manner. This had to be a record, even for the brunet. "I would do nothing to hurt Mokuba." Yugi's back straightened, truth and conviction shining out in his voice.

Kaiba looked at the other silently for a long time (- and Mokuba must have really eaten something funny to have disappeared for that length of time). The brunet finally looked aside, "I should hope not, Mouto." His voice was quiet, but firm. "Or I'll feed you to my dragons."

Yugi laughed, forcing the sound because he was damned if he was going to show himself up in front of Kaiba again –

"Mouto, that wasn't a joke."

The laughter stopped. Quickly.

They hung up stockings together over the authentic fireplace, Mokuba between Seto and Yugi, chattering animatedly to both. Yugi allowed himself to be slowly coaxed into conversation, smiling and laughing with his boyfriend, but Kaiba remained mostly silent, watching the other with his sharp eyes. Yugi was uncomfortably aware of those eyes for the rest of the evening, as the trio ate together, laid out presents together, eventually parted ways and headed for bed only to sneak down later and put presents in each others' stockings. Blue eyes hung over it all, but Yugi bore it, withstood them, and was pleased to note that, on Christmas morning, the gaze was removed from him, left him alone as they ate breakfast together, left him alone right up until they went to their stockings and took the little piles of gifts from them. Yugi found the small, folded note at the bottom of his. Met blue eyes over the top of Mokuba's babbling head (apparently, the young man liked the new watch his brother had given him), and turned aside slightly to open the note and read it.

I could envision worse brother-in-laws…

Yugi looked up, and caught the cynical half-smirk, half-smile on Kaiba Seto's face. Smiled, slightly weakly, but still a little stronger than the night before.

…though the threat of the dragons still stands.